Today in History: Today is Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012

On Dec. 5, 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union announced a bilateral space agreement on exchanging weather data from satellites, mapping Earth's geomagnetic field and cooperating in the experimental relay of communications.

On this date:

In 1776, the first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. In 1782, the eighth president of the United States, Martin Van Buren, was born in Kinderhook, N.Y.; he was the first chief executive to be born after American independence. In 1791, composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, Austria, at age 35. In 1792, George Washington was re-elected president; John Adams was re-elected vice president. In 1848, President James K. Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California. In 1932, German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to travel to the United States. In 1933, national Prohibition came to an end as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment. In 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO under its first president, George Meany. In 1979, feminist Sonia Johnson was formally excommunicated by the Mormon Church because of her outspoken support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. In 1991, Richard Speck, who'd murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966, died in prison a day short of his 50th birthday. In 1994, Republicans chose Newt Gingrich to be the first GOP speaker of the House in four decades.